An extremely clever and tortuous crossword from Hob, but a bit too much for me on a Tuesday morning. The theme revealed its secrets only slowly, and even then the puzzle didn’t become much easier, so I admired it from afar even as I pressed ‘reveal’ on some of the less tractable clues. 16d defeated me for a long time, but I sorted it out in the end.
Across
1 Unhealthy girl some would say is a six-footer? (6)
CICADA
“sick Ada” – at least, that’s how some would say it, apparently; I pronounce it with a different vowel sound.
4 Bust area covered in filigree? Certainly! (6)
GREECE
filiGREE CErtainly. It’s fairly bust at the moment.
9,26 In the ’90s, 27 confused “Ole!” with V-sign (4,6)
LOVE SYMBOL
(OLE V)* + SYMBOL. Prince famously changed his name to this unpronounceable glyph.
26 See 9 across
10 Ships carrying soldiers in aircraft + (10)
FREIGHTERS
RE in FIGHTERS
11 Hold golfer instead of first 9 of 12 (6)
NELSON
ELS for the first O (‘love’) in NOON. I’ve no idea whether Ernie Els is any good as a golfer, but he is a gift to crossword setters.
12 Insect without shell once (8)
FORMERLY
ORMER in FLY
13 Bruce, a Scot lacking name for a plant (9)
FORSYTHIA
(Bruce) FORSYTH + IA(n)
16,15 27 16D partly a Campbell? Lovely! (8)
CHARMING
Part of CHAR(les) + MING (Campbell). A triple clue, with ‘Prince’ as one of the definitions. I am none too keen on ‘partly’ for ‘take a random number of letters’; I’d have preferred ‘more than half’. The surface, perhaps, vaguely alludes to Bonnie Prince Charlie, though of course he wasn’t a Campbell but a Stuart. (Still, ‘Bonnie 27 16d more than half a Campbell’ would have been neat, no?)
15 See 16 across
17 9 26 is in Bottom’s heart, being — —— 12 23 as 27 (3,6)
THE ARTIST
HEART IS in (bo)TT(om), one love symbol being ‘heart’; but as we have seen another is the sign of ‘THE ARTIST formerly known as Prince’.
21 Soak spice at speed (8)
MACERATE
MACE + RATE
22 Degree to which 27 may become very hot (6)
BAKING
BA + KING, which a Prince may become.
24 Cell number for Dracula? (5,5)
BLOOD COUNT
d.d.
25 Cube number indefinitely to get half of 24y (4)
OXON
OXO (cube) + N, for this COUNTy.
27 Possible future titular head of CPRE? (6)
PRINCE
PR in CE gives CPRE, while a PRINCE is possibly a future titular head. A devliishly clever clue: Wikipedia tells me that Her Maj is the Patron of the CPRE, so a prince could even be seen as exactly what the clue says on the tin.
Down
1 Near WC1, for a start (5,2)
CLOSE TO
CLOSET O(ne). WC1, indeed!
2 Food item in cupboard, caught for 27 (5)
CRESS
C for P in PRESS
3 Rid of enjoyment, perhaps, with extremes of credit dead and gone (7)
DEFUNCT
DE-FUN + C(redi)T. With ‘Perhaps’ Hob recognises that ‘de-fun’ might just not have made it into some dictionaries yet.
5 Roy whose team’s good for 5 (6)
ROGERS
(Roy of the) ROVERS, with G for V, yielding a singer and actor I haven’t heard of, Roy ROGERS.
6 Ultra vires : “Text me after stripping off” + (9)
EXTREMIST
((v)IRES TEXT M(e))*. Clever but very difficult clue.
7 Record’s turned up – argue about it, after resorting to this? (7)
EARPLUG
(LP)< in ARGUE*, &lit.
8 Smug US fighter nearly loses out (4-9)
SELF-RIGHTEOUS
(US FIGHTER LOSE(s))*
14 Place fit for a 27, say – no good for honeymooner (9)
STATEROOM
STATE (= say) + (g)ROOM
16 27 fools all bar the first (7)
CHARLES
CHARL(i)ES, all bar I, which represents ‘the first’ in titles like ‘Charles I’. This was my last one in by half an hour, the explanation being elusive even when the answer was staring me in the face.
18 Judge 17 up above Dracula? (7)
ARBITER
RA< above BITER
19 Not mad about Jack, a sailor in US city + (3,4)
SAN JOSE
SANE about J + OS (Ordinary Seaman)
20 Cowboy left in Haiti has 9 for Spain (6)
GAUCHO
O (love) for E (Spain) in GAUCHE, Haiti being French-speaking.
23 Recognised 27’s father, this time by name (5)
KNOWN
K (king, a prince’s father) + NOW + N
Thanks, Writinghawk, for today’s blog.
It’s seldom I don’t like an Indy weekday cryptic, but I didn’t like this at all. I eventually finished it but can’t say it was a pleasurable experience. It was, imho, just too intricate and too cross-referenced, with a wilfully obscure gateway clue: this meant that I was running around the grid like a demented collie chasing its own tail before disappearing up my own arse. I agree with you about getting CHAR from CHARLES – this is not the Grauniad – and CICADA makes no sense to me, despite the setter’s efforts with ‘some would say’.
And it also contained one of my bugbears – 23dn references the gateway clue, and crosses with it. Don’t do that.
So sorry, Hob – thank you for the puzzle, but not my cup of tea this morning.
Excellent tricky themed puzzle.
NB his full name is 27 5 11.
Since we had Tyrus this time last week is Tuesday becoming the new Thursday?
I found this very tricky, and like K’s D said, not as much fun as a lot of Indy weekday puzzles. I was very pleased to have finished it without aids. NELSON and OXON went in from the definitions so thanks to Writinghawk for the parsing of them, plus the parsing of PRINCE, which I got after I had enough checkers to see THE ARTIST, the clue for which had given me FORMERLY and KNOWN.
Hob obviously has a lot of talent and some clever ideas, but he should maybe bear in mind that most people do cryptics because they enjoy them.
Definitely tricky – but saying that I think it is the first Hob puzzle I ever finished so…
Thanks to Hob and Writinghawk.
I agree with most of the above. Cleverly composed but mostly unenjoyable to solve.
1a would never work. The word is originally Latin and still the same in Italian where it is pronounced CHICK-ARDER. No-one would ever pronounce it as SICK-AIDER
I believe it is pronounced SICK-AIDER in America (not that that is a recommendation).
And the clue includes “some would say” and is followed by a ?
Thank you for the blog. Yes a real work-out for me. A few I couldn’t parse and I put “Charlie” in for 16d, thinking the word play just meant a singular, which of course is a bit too obvious. The 11a answer is also clever in that it’s the name of a famous golfer.
As an uncouth Antipodean with an accent like paint stripper I’m quite happy with SICK-AIDER, but I can see that it might grate a bit for those of you used to er… more cultured sounding vowels.
Great stuff Hob, but I’m glad I didn’t have to blog it. Thanks Writinghawk.
Roy Rogers was, I guess, a singer and actor, but most of all a cowboy, if I’ve got the right one in mind. It does go back a bit.
Thanks to Herb @2 for pointing out the additional theme words.
To be fair to Hob, he (or she) was writing a crossword in English, not Italian, and Chambers clearly lists two pronunciations for ‘cicada’ (differing only in the long ‘a’ vowel), one of which is the one required for 1ac.
I too found the key clue (27ac) very hard, and indeed, the wordplay is ‘one of those clues’ – the reverse type – which can only be understood backwards, not forwards. On the other hand the definition could not have been more explicit, and practically the first thing I did was to look for synonyms of ‘king’, ‘queen’, ‘monarch’ etc that had six letters. With the ‘possible future’ bit in front of me in black and white, how did I not think of ‘prince’? For me it’s one of those kick-yourself-afterwards numbers.
But yes, next time I’m standing in for an absent blogger (which is for this Friday’s Grauniad, please note any crossword editors reading) I’d be happy to find something a little easier laid on. At least on a weekday.
PHEW! Thanks writinghawk for standing in for us – absent bloggers rather than blogger! Thankfully Bert was more on Hob’s wavelength last night – Joyce was left wondering whether she had lost her solving ability for quite some while. Thankfully the role was reversed when we completed Monday’s Raich this morning!
We finished this with only a little bit of assistance with the check button but it took a while. We were vaguely familiar with the theme so were able to make some guesses along the way.
Thanks Hob, not the most enjoyable puzzle you’ve created but it kept the grey matter working.
My experience was similar to other people’s. I got three clues quite quickly but was then stuck for a long time because I just couldn’t penetrate the interlinked clues. I was close to giving up when I had a moment of inspiration that future titular head would be Prince (as a Republican, I thoroughly approve of the titular). After that, I managed to make better progress but it was still hard going to prise out the last few.
I did spot the full name of Prince but only because, out of curiosity, I went to look up his original name on Wikipedia. I was quite surprised find he actually was called Prince – I was expecting his real name to be Bill Ramsbottom or something like that.
I enjoyed this a lot – difficult but not tortuously so. Nothing wrong with clue cross-referencing IMO. Loved the clue for GREECE.
Thanks to Hob and Writinghawk.
Couldn’t dig this at all. Just made hard for the helluvit, and convoluted. Not the omnly guilty puzzle in today’s suite, mind you. Or U.
Very clever. Very enjoyable, even though I couldn’t quite finish it. Roy Rogers and Trigger – so soon forgotten?
Back on line after computer went sick. Quite a challenge today but I got there in the end. Re K’sD’s comment @1,the crossing of 23dn with 27ac was actually a help; I guessed KNOWN for 23dn from the def, then there was a sudden ‘aha’ moment and the themed answers all fell into place.
Thanks, Hob and Writinghawk
I thought this was really rather good. A challenge, certainly, but it yielded slowly and satisfyingly consistently. Luckily I had enough time and enough good beer to finish it, but admit I’m glad I wasn’t on blogging duty!
On which note, hi Writinghawk, I don’t believe we’ve met, but I think I used to blog your slot. And great work on this one indeed.
You really must enrol in my &lit class, Writinghawk.
It’s this kind of thing which makes me think that yes, perhaps it’s best really that I’m not a setter. Having produced what I think is a masterpiece I’d have the same experience as Hob, who has given us a very clever crossword with some excellent clues, and people carp about various things like the perfectly acceptable 1ac, and the difficulty.
Yes it was difficult and yes I don’t enjoy all this cross-referencing and yes it took me ages, but as Simon Harris says @18, it revealed itself slowly and satisfyingly.
Having said all this, I was going to carp about 7dn, where ‘about’ seems to do double duty, but as hasn’t been pointed out by anyone (perhaps it’s too obvious) the anagram indicator is ‘up —’.
Simon@18 Hi, but it’s not my slot; as I mentioned above, I’m a stand-in. I’m a (newish) regular on the Quiptic. Paul@19: I could lecture the course if you like. There are, as you say, different views on what qualifies as &lit., and there are certainly some clue types which edge in that direction without any other label quite sufficing for them, but I will robustly defend the description here. Wil@20: No, ‘about’ is the inclusion indicator; the anagrind is ‘after resorting (re-sorting) to this’, though I sense by the hairs on the back of my neck that Paul B wishes to enter a query about whether ‘to this’ should properly be included, or whether it is some kind of recapitulating, &lit-avoiding definitive device, or RALADD as I encourage my students to call it.
Wil, think ‘LP’ is turned up with ‘argue’ after resorting around it. Very good clue.
Record’s turned up – argue about it, after resorting to this? (7)
Fine clue. I have no reservations about it per se, but there are two things, Writinghawk, that I will say about the &lit rating you’ve given it, since you’ve sort of asked (by suggesting, tantalisingly, what I may not like).
First, and as you say, there are superfluous elements (‘to’ and ‘this’). &lits tend not to bother with such baggage, generally sticking with the SI, inds & link. Second, &lits should define the required word or phrase unequivocally, and this clue doesn’t really do that (which is, of course, why it needs the extra bits). To suggest a scenario in which an earplug might be used is clever, but by no means a straight def (which is what an &lit usually is if you read it for surface only: see ‘the jungly mass one cleaves’ = MACHETE for instance).
As Jim T and others say, very good clue. But one that deploys an ‘extended definition’ (a term now very popular around these parts since Pete Biddlecombe invented it) rather than an &lit.
Another one who couldn’t finish it here, and I thought I was doing rather well to fail on just five clues (even after some word searches). Actually, I’d sort of guessed 6dn and then dismissed it as it didn’t seem to make sense. But I’m astonished at myself at not seeing 4ac!
However, I’d just like to say that Roy Rogers singing A Four-legged Friend was one of my favourite songs on the radio when I was about five. Just solving that clue has caused the song to start running around my brain all day. (And the four-legged friend in question was called Trigger.)
Paul @23: Certainly it’s a fine clue, having agreed which I suppose we may call it what we please. But in counterpoint to your second objection, the abbreviation is &lit, not &def, and there is no warranty there of a straight definition; merely that if the literal meaning of the clue as a whole is taken, it will give some indication, whether a definition or otherwise, of the word’s meaning. I have before me Ximenes’s great work On the art of the crossword, at the chapter called ‘”& Lit.” Clues’ – I have been taken to task before for quoting X in these halls never so briefly, but I think I can’t be at fault here since so far as I know he invented the term under discussion – so I shall indulge myself. Here he is on the subject:
‘The term “& lit.” is short for “This clue both indicates the letters or parts of the required word, […] and can also be read, in toto, literally, as an indication of the meaning of the whole word, whether as a straight or as a veiled definition.”
Many examples from the chapter would pass your exacting scrutiny, but here are some that catch my eye:
[1] I don’t exactly get more dim – I last, if I’m this (12)
[2] This is when models that have lost their shape are employed (6)
[3] One of three maids OK for his issue? Yes (6)
[4] Tower where one might see a man like Col. Fairfax show impatience (9)
I hope you know your Gilbert and Sullivan or you will be stuck on 50% of these. (The answers (ROT13) are VZZBEGNYVFRQ, FRYQBZ, ZVXNQB, ORNHPUNZC). They all certainly have what you might call superfluous elements, and some of the definitions are a trifle veiled. If I was going to call any clue an ‘extended definition’, [4] would fit the bill: the bald definition, ‘Tower’, is extended by knowing that Col. Fairfax showed impatience there; meanwhile the good Col. was a ORNH, probably PUNZCing at the bit in his impatience.
Reverting to the clue at hand, I think anyway it’s possible to read ‘to this’ as part of the anagrind: ‘ARGUE has been re-sorted to give this result (when put around the letters PL as instructed)’, which is why I considered that even under the strictest conditions, I could fairly call it an &lit. Still I’ll grant you that ‘Extended definition’ is a nice term, though you must admit RALADD is quite catchy.
Thanks Writinghawk and Hob – tricky but enjoyable, imho.
Well, I think Ximenes’ definition sums up my view pretty well, don’t you? However, if he is, as you imply, also saying that clues of the type you’ve singled out are &lits, then I’m afraid I disagree with him, albeit on those examples only. Surely I will roast in Hell.
One can never be entirely sure about these things, not without laborious analysis, which I confess I can’t buggered to do after another long(ish) day at the lay(ab)out pad, but on the &lit blog (Azed slip stuff) they appear to be only calling absolute ‘SI also = def’ clues &lits. Where clues don’t manage this, just the clue type is listed.
Go there and check if you like, but I’ll stick with my own ludicrously ‘exacting’ parameters nonetheless.